My second piece of artwork this year! This is another petite size of artwork using a drawing from one of my old sketchbooks. I have been trying to keep in the habit of sketching daily. It was a difficult design, since the ladybugs and dimensions were tiny. The shapes are simplified as best I could do […] more »
My goal for this piece was to create a bright and colorful collage of our two fun-loving goats. I was not pleased with the first design, so I changed the barn image and the support for this piece. I began with the red barn and concentrated on the big, bold shapes first. The goats shapes […] more »
This artwork came about by way of request, but I have been thinking of doing one of the indian corn for a long time. I worked from my original pencil drawing done in 1980, which is very detailed and took me many months to complete. In the collage design my drawing is simplified — just […] more »
This piece was inspired by the interesting shape of the violin, and it was something that has been on the back burner for a while. When a friend asked me if I had any collages of this particular subject, I jumped right in and designed a piece. My favorite part of designing a piece is choosing […] more »
Flowers have always inspired me, and this piece was special because I wanted to try this in collage instead of the traditional watercolor methods. I began with a loose contour drawing of this Christmas plant and experimented using colored pencils in my sketchbook with unusual colors. I decided to limit my palette and edited my contour […] more »
This is a realistic watercolor painting of the newly-renovated bandshell in Centerville, Iowa. Many people have asked me to paint this structure because of the good memories it holds for them. I worked from my photograph, which includes the historic courthouse behind it. more »
I am continually searching for interesting flowers to paint. This is a big, beautiful bloom at the Botanical Center in Des Moines. These finger-like petals sprout from the center of the plant on a large stalk. Tropical plants always have bold colors, and their leaves have fun details to paint. I painted the flower shape much […] more »
My intention for this painting was to use complementary colors to make this piece sing! The chairs were painted wet-in-wet, dropping the pigments into the the damp areas of the paper. I love the way the pigments have mingled and flowed into each other. This is the main attribute of watercolors, and I love to […] more »
This particular piece was not one I breezed through effortlessly. One of the problems was limiting colors. I have a tendency to go hog wild with colors! Every element surrounding the chairs works toward harmonizing the shapes and patterns. It gets complicated if there are too many shapes and if it gets too crowded. I always […] more »
This piece is a reinvention of one of my favorite subjects: chairs. A challenge with this composition was adding non-related elements, as well as harmonizing the colors. It all began with an elderly blue jay, who flew to our patio and just sat and sat. No movement. He perched on the water bowl for a […] more »